Pickthall: «And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the other will remember.»

In recent months, several reports have appeared to a generally uncritical reception in the press, which purport to expose alleged conspiracies organized by “Islamophobes” against American citizens who mean us no harm. These reports single out for condemnation a dozen prominent conservative figures (and mostly the same dozen) who have publicly criticized the misogyny, bigotry, and terrorism promoted by many (but not all) Islamic institutions and religious texts.

The term “Islamophobia” itself was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the political fountainhead of Islamic terror, having spawned al-Qaeda and created Hamas. Not coincidently, the reports themselves have been produced by Brotherhood fronts like CAIR, and jihadist apologists like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the latest and most elaborate Islamophobia report, transparently derivative of its predecessors, has been issued by the Center for American Progress, which is a brain trust of the Democratic party. It thus marks a disturbing development in this ugly campaign.

On examination, the term “Islamophobia” is designed to create a modern-day thought crime, while the campaign to suppress it is an effort to abolish the First Amendment where Islam is concerned. The purpose of the suffix — phobia — is to identify any concern about troubling Islamic institutions and actions as irrational, or worse as a dangerous bigotry that should itself be feared.

Is fear of terrorists inspired by Islam irrational? There have been 17,800 terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims in the name of Allah since 9/11. Is it unreasonable to be concerned that 30,000 shoulder-ready surface-to-air missiles have recently gone missing in the Muslim nation of Libya, where both government and rebels support the Islamic jihad against America and the West?

Would not a reasonable person be concerned about the attacks plotted and carried out by Muslims in the United States who claim to be inspired by the Koran and who regard themselves as holy warriors in the jihad declared by Osama bin Laden and other Muslim fanatics? These Muslim attacks include the successful massacre of unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood by Nidal Hassan, a self-declared Muslim warrior whose anti-infidel rantings were ignored by the military brass.

These Muslim terrorists include Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others.

If the FBI and law-enforcement agencies had not had serious fears of Muslim fanatics, had not been possessed by a species of “Islamophobia,” all those would-be terrorist attacks would be successful attacks and carry long lists of dead innocents — infidels — along with their names.

Should those of us who are infidels — and therefore targets — not be concerned by a religion whose followers regard this Koranic incitement as the word of God: “Slay the pagans wherever you find them.” (9:5)?

Should Jews not be concerned by the Jew-hatred that permeates the sacred texts of this religion, whose prophet has said: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them, until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim 6985)?

Should Jews not be concerned that this genocidal incitement is enshrined in the Hamas charter and defines the agenda of an armed force that is supported by dozens of Muslim states and many factions of the international left?

Should women not fear the expansion of a creed whose God likens a woman to a field men can till: “Your women are a field for you (to cultivate) so go to your field as ye will.” (Koran 2:223)? This God has decreed that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man (2:282), that men can marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls (4:3), that a son’s inheritance shall be twice the size of daughter’s (4:11), and that husbands can and should beat their disobedient wives: “Good women are obedient…. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (4:34).This God sanctions marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4). Islamic law codifies all this and adds from Islamic tradition justification for honor killing, female genital mutilation, and even the prohibition of women leaving their homes without permission from a male guardian.

Gays fare no better. As Sheikh Khalid Yasin, an Islamic preacher sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, said in 2005: “God is very straightforward about this — not we Muslims, not subjective, the Sharia is very clear about it, the punishment for homosexuality, bestiality or anything like that is death. We don’t make any excuses about that, it’s not our law — it’s the Koran.” Hossein Alizadeh of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has said that in Iran gays live with “constant fear of execution and persecution and also social stigma associated with homosexuality.” This is true not only in Iran, but in all too many areas of the Islamic world. Is gays’ fear of Islamic institutions and governments irrational? Phobic?

Finally, there is the failure of any Muslim state or authority to condemn the calls of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the extermination of America and Israel. The mainstream media constantly assumes that Muslims don’t take their words seriously, and that there exists a large population of moderate Muslims who reject the excesses of these violent leaders. Yet these moderates have maintained their silence in the face of the genocidal calls in the name of their God. They have failed to mount a campaign to condemn and counter the Jew-hatred expressed by their spiritual leaders, and broadcast by their government-sponsored media organizations, and taught in their schools.

What is truly irrational is not the fear of these very real threats, but the fear of those who point out these threats and whom the Muslim Brotherhood and its enablers have demonized as “Islamophobes.” What is irrational is the failure to recognize danger when it stares you in the face, and the attempt to silence those who have the temerity to attempt to warn you before it is too late.

The Islamization of the Australian passport

On the Australian passport, only Muslims are allowed to cover facial features.

Only religious reasons are acceptable excuses for covering hair, ears and facial contours. And only Islam has such religious reasons. From the Australian Govermnent's general photograph guidelines:

The photograph must show you without any hat or other head covering.
However, if you wear a head covering for religious reasons we will accept a photograph of you wearing it, but your facial features from bottom of chin to top of forehead and both edges of your face must be clearly shown.

Iranian court upholds apostasy conviction and death sentence for convert from Islam to Christianity

An update on this story. "Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani faces potential execution," by Jordan Sekulow for the Washington Post, September 27:

Just days after Iran released two Americans accused of spying, an Iranian court has upheld the apostasy conviction and execution sentence of Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.

The 11th branch of Iran’s Gilan Provincial Court has determined that Nadarkhani has Islamic ancestry and therefore must recant his faith in Jesus Christ. Iran’s supreme court had previously ruled that the trial court must determine if Youcef had been a Muslim before converting to Christianity.

However, the judges, acting like terrorists with a hostage, demanded that he recant his faith in Christ before even taking evidence. The judges stated that even though the judgment they have made is against the current Iranian and international laws, they have to uphold the previous decision of the 27th Branch of the Supreme Court in Qom.

When asked to “repent” by the judges, Youcef stated, “Repent means to return. What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?” The judges replied , “To the religion of your ancestors, Islam.” To which he replied, “I cannot.”

It is reported that Youcef was able to see his children for the first time since March and was in good spirits speaking of how he longed to serve the church upon his release.

Pastor Youcef will be brought to the court for two additional “hearings” on September 27th and 28th for the sole purpose of being called upon to recant his Christian faith. The ACLJ’s sources report that although Pastor Youcef’s attorneys will attempt to appeal the case, there is no guarantee that the provincial court will not act on its own interpretation of Sharia law and execute pastor Youcef as early as Wednesday.

Technically, there is no right of appeal, and under Iran’s interpretation of Hadith and Sharia law, Pastor Youcef is to be given three chances to recant. He has already been asked to recant twice, and will be asked to do so again Tuesday. If he does not recant his Christian faith, he could be executed at any time.

On the heels of an edict allowing women to “participate” in elections to powerless municipal councils and to be appointed to a toothless Shura council, today Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman, “Shema,” to 30 lashes for driving while female, the BBC is reporting.

Also on the topic of Saudi women, Gulf analyst Simon Henderson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has an interesting story, “All the King’s Women,” at foreignpolicy.com. He quotes a diplomatic source as saying that the 88-year-old monarch is too sick to rule and “lucid for only a couple of hours a day.” He speculates that one of the king’s daughters is responsible for his decree on Sunday. Henderson notes that the king’s personal views on women are hardly modern and reveals he has long had a full Islamic complement of four wives, “two of whom were semi-permanent and the other two ‘rolled-over.’” In any event, like me, Henderson also doubts that the king will be around in four years to enforce the decree on women’s rights to participate in the municipal councils’ elections and that his likely successor, Wahhabi hardliner Prince Nayef, is unlikely to do so.

In light of today’s development, it becomes clearer just how clever a public relations move the women’s political rights decree was.

• The secret report on Turkish atrocities in Cyprus

The secret report from Council of Europe on Turkish atrocities in Cyprus during the 1974 invasion has been recovered. This report documents the systematic and extensive human rights violations perpetrated by the Turkish army against the Greek Cypriot population, raping an murdering thousands in order to force a mass exodus and an ethnic cleansing of the northern third of Cyprus. Turkey has never been held responsible for these atrocities and, in spite of all principles of international law, is still permitted to keep the fruits of the 1974 aggression, specifically the so-called Turkish Republic of North Cyprus.

From Cyprus Action Network:
THE SUNDAY TIMES (London, 23 January 1977) having secured a copy of a secret Council of Europe Report, which found Turkey guilty of violating seven articles of the European convention on Human Rights.

On the ground of the 1976 secret Report, THE SUNDAY TIMES published on 23rd January 1977 a first page massive indictment of the Ankara government for the murders, rapes and looting by the Turkish army in Cyprus during and after the 1974 Turkish invasion, together with an Insight Exclusive titled “Turk atrocities: What secret report reveals”.

To the fury of the Turkish government, the newspaper published extracts of the secret Report, that document the killing and execution of civilians (men, women and children), the repeated rapes of women of all ages from 12 to 71, the enforced prostitution of women and girls, the SYSTEMATIC TORTURE of people (including children, women and pensioners), and the systematic looting in all Turkish-occupied areas of Greek Cypriot houses and business premises.

Turkish soldiers performing ethnic cleansing in Cyprus

The Movement for Freedom & Justice in Cyprus has secured the full text of the Council of Europe's SECRET Report on the Turkish Atrocities in Cyprus, which should have been THE BIBLE of all Governments’ (of Cyprus and Greece) efforts against Turkey since 1976…

The BBC has been accused of bowing to political correctness after it emerged that it was discouraging the use of the terms BC and AD for fear of offending non-Christians.

By Claire Duffin

12:59AM BST 25 Sep 2011

The Corporation's religion website states that it opts for the "religiously neutral" Common Era and Before Common Era, rather than Anno Domini (the year of Our Lord) and Before Christ.

It goes on: "As the BBC is committed to impartiality it is appropriate that we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians."

But critics said the changes were meaningless because, just like AD and BC, the alternative terms still denote years in relation to the life of Christ.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said: "These changes are unnecessary and they don't achieve what the BBC wants them to achieve.

"Whether you use Common Era or Anno Domini, the date is actually still the same and the reference point is still the birth of Christ."

As well as the BBC's Religion and Ethics website, its Learning and GCSE Bitesize websites also use the alternative terms, which have also been used in some news bulletins and on some programmes.

The BBC said last night: "The BBC has not issued guidance on the dates system. Both AD and BC, and BE and BCE are widely accepted dates systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams."

24.9.11

In the spring of 1964, while the Vietnam War was underway, the space
program had brought close up photos of the moon, and the Beatles were
topping the charts; the Arab League convened to try and find a way to
complete the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. They had tried it once before in 1948,
with incomplete results. Back then, the Arab forces had managed to
capture and ethnically cleanse the eastern half of Jerusalem, as well as
seizing and annexing the West Bank and Gaza. But for 16 years, Israel
had managed to frustrate their designs by stubbornly continuing to
exist.

What
the Arab governments wanted was a terrorist organization that could
cross the border and carry out attacks inside Israel. And they wanted
plausible deniability so that Israel and the UN couldn't hold them
responsible for those attacks. And so cloaked in a lot of smoke and
mirrors about "Palestinian Arab nationhood", the Palestine Liberation
Organization was born. The PLO had three tasks, to harass Israel through
terror, to cultivate a fifth column inside the country that would come
into play in an invasion, and to make it seem as if the Arab world
wasn't a bunch of genocidal maniacs, but wanted to destroy Israel in the
name of "Palestinian rights".

The Arab League had never believed in an independent Palestinian
state. Even while they were creating the PLO, Jordan had already annexed
the West Bank. And Gaza was in Egyptian hands. The PLO's purpose was
not to liberate these areas, or even to govern them. Its own charter made that abundantly clear.

Article
24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over
the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or
the Himmah area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in
the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

The
PLO's own founding charter had already conceded that the West Bank was
not part of Palestine, and instead recognized Jordan's annexation of the
area. When the PLO talked about "liberating" Palestine, it only meant
the parts of Israel that the Arab League members had not succeeded in
seizing in 1948. When the PLO talked about liberating Palestine, up
until 1967, it had nothing to do with the West Bank or Gaza, it simply
meant destroying Israel.

It was not until 1967, when the latest Arab League attempt to "drive the
Jews into the sea" failed, that the PLO
began talking about their rights to Gaza and the West Bank. Previously
they had staged terrorist attacks on Israel from bases in Gaza and the
West Bank, under the sponsorship of Egypt and Jordan. After Israel
reclaimed Gaza and the West Bank, and reversed the ethnic cleansing of
Jews carried out in 1948, the PLO began focusing on the territories that
their sponsors had lost in 1967, rather than just those they had lost
in 1948.

23.9.11

Myth 1: "Israel was created because Europe felt guilty about the Holocaust."

This left wing myth has been widely repeated, most recently by Desmond Tutu. While blatantly false on a level that even the most serious anti-Israel historian can recognize, it persists because its function is to delegitimize Israel as the product of post-war colonial guilt, rather than longstanding Israeli national aspirations.

Israel was not created in 1947. By 1947, Israel already was a functioning country with a language, culture, agriculture, universities, newspapers and military forces which proved capable of defending against the armies of several Arab nations. The only thing that happened after the Holocaust was a UN vote in 1947 for a partition plan that was never implemented because the Arab world instead chose to try and destroy Israel. Israel however would have declared independence and fought for its own survival, with the same exact outcome, regardless of UN Resolution 181. This vote is often described as creating Israel, but it was more accurately an attempt to settle the borders of Israel. An attempt that failed because of Arab genocidal hostility which expressed itself not only toward Israel, but toward the Jews living in Arab lands.

Nor did post-war European colonialism create Israel. Britain, which was the colonial power in the region, was against Israel's independence and abstained in the UN vote. The majority of votes for Resolution 181 came from non-European countries, primarily in Latin America and Eastern Europe, such as Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Peru and Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. 7 European countries voted Yes, most of them Northern European states such as Sweden and Denmark, which experienced only a limited impact from the Holocaust. 12 Latin American countries voted Yes. Twice that number. And these were countries that had their own national aspirations and had successfully fought against colonialism.

Post-Holocaust guilt was not the reason Resolution 181 passed. Less than a third of the 33 votes came from countries where the Holocaust had taken place. Their reasons were varied and different. Some Latin American countries identified with Israel's national aspirations and some sought economic ties. Truman was influenced by the desire for Jewish votes in an upcoming election. The Soviet Union wanted to sabotage Britain's colonial program. The motives of different countries were more complex, than pity, let alone guilt. Iran for example voted against the resolution and yet became the second country to recognize the new State of Israel.

Left wing activists may insist that Resolution 181 was a racist act, but in fact half the countries who voted for it were non-white, and most of the countries who voted for it were non-European. Therefore the myth that Israel was created after the Holocaust by guilty Europeans, a myth that has been bandied about by everyone from Desmond Tutu to Wallace Shawn to Barack Obama is just that, a myth. Israel would have existed regardless of the Holocaust or UN Resolution 181, which was voted for primarily by non-European countries. Those who repeat the myth are therefore demonstrating either ignorance or a willingness to perpetuate a lie in order to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.

No matter the outcome of the statehood bid for the Palestinian Authority, the only sure loser in this scenario is an Israeli government which has once again allowed itself to react to events, rather than dictating them. The price for defeating the statehood bid is almost certain to be more concessions. Whether Abbas gets his UN vote or gets blocked at the gate by Obama, he can still count on more Israeli territory extracted under pressure.

The terrorist game has always been fairly simple, create a crisis and force Israel to react, and then collect their winnings. The Israeli game has been to point at the terrorism and lawbreaking on the enemy side and expect the world to finally acknowledge that the Palestinian Authority has lost its credibility and force it to negotiate honestly. After decades of terror and lies this clearly isn't going to happen, but that hasn't stopped the Israeli government from playing that one card over and over again.

Israel is full of engineers and generals all pointed at the wrong goal, and easily undermined by a shift of terrain that once again forces them to make concessions to enemies that are dumber, but who do take the initiative.

The difference between the magnificent triumph of the Six Day War and the near apocalypse of the Yom Kippur War was the difference between taking the initiative and waiting behind passive defenses for the approval of the international community before taking action. The lesson of both wars is that Israel does not have enough territory, population or resources to be passive. But its current hyper-passive alertness is nearly as awful as pure passivity would be.

Over and over again, the enemy counts on provoking an Israeli reaction and leading it into another lose-lose scenario in which whatever it does, it loses. Passivity allows the enemy to claim victory and a last minute overreaction results in condemnation and forces Israel to write more checks in the form of concessions.

Israel made the mistake of paying too much attention to its image problems and not enough to its military ones. It hasn't won the image war and it's rapidly losing the military one. No Muslim army ever succeeded in cutting Israel in half, even during the Yom Kippur War, but it is on the verge of allowing itself to be pressured into creating a contiguous Palestinian state that will cut it in half.

No Muslim army has managed to seize half of Jerusalem since 1967, but that too is now a mandate on the table. The negotiations and concessions have already cost Israel more territory than any war since 1948 when it was low on weapons, had militias instead of an army, was under an arms embargo and was also on the edge of civil war.

Israel's problem isn't its image, it has an image problem because it has a terrorist problem. If Israel were Sri Lanka or Turkey, then the world might shrug and the story would be reported on Page 5B, but Israel's enemies are an alliance of Islamist petrodollars and the red brigades of the left who have more people, access and resources. The longer the situation drags on, the more material they have to work with, and the more they can make this seem like a raw bloody wound that has to be solved for the sake of regional and world peace. And the more Israel debates, the more it inflates.

Israel has lost its own left, it isn't going to win over the international left, or the Jewish left, the majority of whom with a few exceptions think the world would be a better place if it were to be destroyed.

The American and European foreign policy establishments can't let go of Israel, but they can't stop torturing it either. It's a powerful piece in a game that they don't dare commit to, and in the game of half-measures that they play, it's a piece that does more harm than good. And the Israeli government is playing that same game of half-measures, which also do more harm than good. Everyone wants to keep their options open, to take the high road and kiss the olive branch-- but that road leads down to the abyss.

What Israel needs to do most of all is stop talking, stop reacting and stop playing defense while waiting for a referee to recognize all the fouls committed by the other side and call the game in its favor. The only referee likely to do that is the omnipotent One, and there's no word on when He intends to to blow the whistle. The more Israel reacts to the disruptions, the more they persist and trap it in a game of Catch 22 ball that it can't win.

The peace is not winnable, the war is, and only war can bring about some kind of manageable peace. As long as Israel holds on to the belief that passive defenses, barriers and blockades and bar lev lines will maintain some sort of liable status quo, its position will keep on degrading until it is at risk of being unsalvageable.

Israel has trapped itself in a lose-lose scenario, it needs a strategy that doesn't depend on illusions, on the failures of the other side finally becoming apparent or on tinkering with the status quo so it doesn't hurt so much. It needs to plan for victory, rather than looking for ways to manage defeat. And it may have to get much more desperate before it is ready to commit to the kinds of risky strategies that it has become famous and infamous for.

Bad leadership and international pressure has trapped Israel in a downward strategic spiral of reactive policies leading to image problems, leading to more reactive policies, leading to more disruptive assaults, and more image problems. Breaking out of that spiral will take hard work and risks, but it isn't impossible. What it requires is serious thinking of how to secure a future for Israel that does not depend on the goodwill of its enemies. That is the fundamental error and question that it faces today. And it will likely not find its way to that new independence until its back is once again up against the wall.

Still, Erdogan is making his leadership bid. Here he is at the Arab League foreign minister’s meeting: “It is time for us to take responsibility for our common future….We are entitled to meet the righteous demands of our people using any legitimate means.”

Note two phrases: “our common future” means forget about Arab nationalism. All us Muslims got to stick together. Seeing Turks as Europeans is an obsolete notion for him. Ninety years of secular, Western-oriented nationalism is over.

“Any legitimate means” means the right and need to go to war against Israel. Of course, the U.S. government still acts as if nothing has changed, that Turkey is not just a reliable ally but an especially honored role model, star ally.

And let’s not forget Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser; and Syria’s Assad dynasty; and, of course, Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasir Arafat. All of them also had the same basic program. All of them failed miserably and left their people worse off.

There were some others—King Abdallah of Jordan; Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt; Bashir al-Gemayel of Lebanon. They were all murdered, though, by other locals. King Hussein of Jordan isn’t around any more. So let’s see, demagogues who back terrorism and violence, hate the West, and refuse compromise fail miserably and become heroes. Moderates who want to focus on economic progress (including here Husni Mubarak) and peacemaking are jeered and killed or deposed by their own people.

Might there be a pattern here?

Meanwhile, like Bart Simpson, President Barack Obama and other Western leaders keep writing on the blackboard one hundred times: Now, if only we prove to them we’re their friends they’ll like us.

Maybe, say the Europeans, if we recognize a Palestinian state they will like us! Maybe if we say enough things about Muslims they’ll like us! After all, it is all our fault, or Israel’s fault, that they are angry. They couldn’t possibly want a revolution based on a radical ideology followed by a repressive dictatorship because that’s what they really want!

In other words, Western leaders aren’t protecting their interests. They’re auditioning for the role of Middle East hero against those who can say they are a Muslim or even an Arab. Guess who’s going to get the part? Are they going to persuade the producers that they hate Israel more than Qaradawi or Erdogan or Fadlallah? That they will promote Islam as well as people like that? That they will kick the West (that is, themselves) out of the Middle East?

In contrast, a Gulf Arab, who hates all this stuff, gave the alternative in a private conversation: “I don’t want an American president to behave like an Arab. I want an American president who will behave like an American.”

consider the shocking interview the PLO’s ambassador to Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, gave the Lebanese Daily Star last week:

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state…

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees…

“When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

The Palestinian Liberation Organization would remain responsible for refugees, and Abdullah says that UNRWA would continue its work as usual.

This is simply unbelievable. For years, the world has backed a Palestinian state on the grounds Palestinians are stateless people who deserve a country of their own. And now, a senior Palestinian official has announced once they have received a state, most Palestinians will still be stateless – even those who actually live in “Palestine.”

Moreover, the new state won’t provide these residents with any services: It expects UNRWA – or, more accurately, the American and European taxpayers who provide the bulk of that organization’s funding – to continue providing their schooling, healthcare, welfare allowances, etc.

According to UNRWA, some 689,000 of the West Bank’s 2.4 million Palestinians and 1.1 million of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians are refugees. Thus, aside from the 2.9 million Diaspora refugees, a whopping 45 percent of the new state’s residents will also remain stateless, deprived of both citizenship and services by the country the world fondly imagines is being created to serve their needs.

But of course, the PA doesn’t want a state to serve its people’s needs; it wants a state to further its goal of destroying Israel. Hence the refugees can’t be given citizenship; that would undermine its demand to resettle them in Israel, thereby destroying the Jewish state demographically.